Should I change goal now?

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FitterFifteen
FitterFifteen Posts: 75 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi, I’ve been dieting and losing weight since last August and managed to lose 5st bringing me to 12lbs within my goal weight of 12st10lbs.

I’m currently set to lose 1lb per week giving me a daily calorie allowance of 2090. At this current allowance I can eat enough to feel full throughout the day without wanting more.

However I’ve seen a fair few comments on here saying that once you get towards your goal weight you should switch to 0.5 lbs per week loss which would give me a daily calorie allowance of 2340.

So my question is, should I switch to this lower goal now, or wait another few pounds?

A little bit more about myself, I’m 6ft and have a slightly natural larger build. I currently run once or twice a week for about 3km and cycle at least once a week (mountain biking) for 10-15 miles. I eat back about 75% of calories based on the assumption that the calories stated within MapMyRun are exaggerated slightly. I’m also doing a lifting routine at home until the gyms reopen and returning to boxing once per week from next week.

Thanks for your help.

Replies

  • Hanibanani2020
    Hanibanani2020 Posts: 523 Member
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    Well done! What’s your current rate of weekly loss atm?
  • harper16
    harper16 Posts: 2,564 Member
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    I'd suggest switching to .5 lbs a week weight loss now, and not waiting til you lose more weight.
  • FitterFifteen
    FitterFifteen Posts: 75 Member
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    Hanibanani2020 wrote: »
    Well done! What’s your current rate of weekly loss atm?
    Thanks 😊, it feels like it’s taken a very long time! Losing about 1lb on average a week.

  • Strudders67
    Strudders67 Posts: 980 Member
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    I'd switch now. Losing more, per week, may start impacting on muscle as well as fat which is why there are suggestions to slow your rate of loss down once you get to within 20lb of goal. Also, it'll make your transition to maintenance, once you get to your goal weight, that little bit less of a shock.
  • nanastaci2020
    nanastaci2020 Posts: 1,072 Member
    edited July 2020
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    Those schedules do not work for everyone. You and I, for example, are different people with different #s. If you are able to eat 2900 calories per day and lose weight at an average of 1 pound per week: no reason to change that now. Personally I do not even burn 2900 calories on my most active of days - maybe if I did a half marathon but there are none on my horizon at the moment. So what is reasonable for you would not be the same as what is reasonable for me.

    Now if you think you'd feel better, have better options eating at 3150: go for it. But doing it just because someone on the internet says you should not aim for 1 pound loss per week with 12 to go? Bogus. You are more active, burn more on a daily basis than the 'average' person out there with 12 to lose.
  • FitterFifteen
    FitterFifteen Posts: 75 Member
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    PAV8888 wrote: »
    You've lost 70 lbs approximately, and your goal at 6ft is about 180lbs? Correct?

    Are you recording all your exercise over and above your normal MFP activity level? What weight loss level are you dialed into in MFP and what deficits have you been achieving? How does that compare to weight trend change validation?

    Basically you should be much less worried about how fast you lose the last 12 lbs and MUCH MUCH more worried how to be setting up long term maintenance.

    Now is the time to go full on into experimentation/dialing in all the behaviours you intend to continue with long term.

    Whether it takes you 3 months, 6 months, or 12+ months to drop the last 12lbs, it matters not. Because health-wise you've already got your big pay-off in the bag. And the longer you keep the pay off the better off you are.

    So almost all your focus, in my opinion, should be on feathering towards and locking into maintenance and on continuing to maintain for the first 2-5 years post weight loss!

    Make sure you're eating as you intend to continue. If there's experimentation to be done, foods to be re-introduced, suppressed habits to be re-examined, now is the time while you're still focused on weight loss!

    Make sure you're logging all exercise that is above your MFP dialed in level before you switch away from the 75% that you're eating back (so start by logging things you might have ignored)

    Then play with the 75% and the dialed in deficit to slowly bring yourself to maintenance.

    Then experiment with pushing up the maintenance level of calories a little bit up till you're confident you've determined the general range of maintenance level calories according to your logging habits.

    Take care.

    Hi, thanks for your advice. It looks like I’ve got a bit more to figure out then for the long term! And I thought losing the weight would be the hard part 😂

    I do log my exercise when it comes to cardio type activities and my current activity level is set to lightly active as I average between 5k-12k steps at work depending on the type of site I’m on.
  • FitterFifteen
    FitterFifteen Posts: 75 Member
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    Strudders67 wrote: »
    I'd switch now. Losing more, per week, may start impacting on muscle as well as fat which is why there are suggestions to slow your rate of loss down once you get to within 20lb of goal. Also, it'll make your transition to maintenance, once you get to your goal weight, that little bit less of a shock.

    Muscle loss is something I’m concerned about and something I’ve tried to counteract throughout the process by lifting and ensuring my protein levels are high, although I’ve not tracked that too strictly.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 13,652 Member
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    Just a quick FYI in terms of math, lightly active = 1.4 * BMR.

    Any burn you get from a calculator for any length of time doing an activity needs to be decreased by that 1.4 * BMR to give you a net burn for the time period without double counting.

    This, accurate intake logging, and how close you track to the mean are the three major reasons why people suggest eating back less than 100% of calories.

    But the "correct" eatback varies because of the above.

    You may also benefit from using a weight trend app instead of looking at daily weight change to reduce the influence of water weight variation on your decision making.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    At your weight losing 1lb/week to goal is fine as long as you are finding that sustainable, energy levels are good etc.
    A lot of the dire warnings about reducing to 0.5/week are far more applicable to smaller people.

    One of the sensible weight loss guidelines suggests no more than 1% bodyweight / week and if you apply that to a 5ft 100lb person and your 178lb goal weight at 6ft you will see how different the numbers work out.

    There's of course no problem if you simply want to start the process of coming up to maintenance calories earlier. If you are getting quite lean then that might push you towards reducing your rate of weight loss earlier.

    It is a good time to think ahead to the transition to maintenance and dipping into the Maintaining Weight forum to read some of the most helpful posts would be a good idea.

    (Personal experience - my original goal weight was 12st 7lbs and losing steadily at 1lb / week wasn't an issue at all and the transition to eating 500cals more a day on average when I hit goal was easy for me.)

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